The young child's cognitions and feelings about the self, how they develop, and the contributions made by specific rearing experiences are a poorly understood area of development. Here the verbalizations that mothers direct to their young children are investigated as a possibly contributing factor to the child's self-conception. Maternal attributions by normal and depressed mothers are compared. Hopelessness, helplessness, and negative feelings of self-worth are associated with adult depression. Do attributions to the child by depressed mothers contribute to similar negative self-images by the child? Children's self-concepts associated with various maternal inputs are examined. The families studied are of middle and upper-middle class backgrounds, with mothers diagnosed as normal (N = 20) or depressed (N = 20). Written transcripts of the verbal input by mother and child in ordinary rearing situations provide the primary data. An hour of behavior is selected to sample a variety of conditions in the interactions of parent and child. Recorded also are the behavioral context of the verbalizations, tone of voice, facial expression, and body movements. Measures of the child's self-concept and feelings are also from observational data on dependency behaviors, self-representations in play and drawings, and revelations of self in psychiatric assessments and in interactions with mother and others.